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Robert Kearns
Early career
Kearns was born in Gary, Indiana. He grew up near the large Ford plant in River Rouge, Michigan, a city south of Detroit. His father worked for the Great Lakes Steel Corporation.
He excelled in cross-country foot racing during high school, was a talented violinist, and became a teenage intelligence officer when he served in the armed services. Kearns was a member of the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the U.S. CIA, during World War II.
He earned engineering degrees from University of Detroit and Wayne State University and a doctorate from Case Institute of Technology, a predecessor of Case Western Reserve University.
Intermittent wipers
It is reported that the inspiration for his invention stems from an incident on Kearns' wedding night in 1953, when an errant champagne cork shot into his left eye, which eventually went almost completely blind. Nearly a decade later, in 1963, Kearns was driving his Ford Galaxie through a light rain, and the constant movement of the wiper blades irritated his already troubled vision. He modeled his mechanism on the human eye, which blinks every few seconds, rather than continuously. Kearns later downplayed his courtroom story of the inspiration and played up a more conscious, deliberate inventive process.
Legal case
He sued Ford Motor Company in 1978 and Chrysler Corporation in 1982 for patent infringement. The Ford case went to trial in 1990, and there were two trials. Ford lost, although the court held that Ford's infringement was not willful (meaning that damages for infringement would not be enhanced). Ford agreed to settle with Kearns for US$ 10.1 million with an agreement of no further appeals.
After the settlement with Ford, Kearns mostly acted as his own attorney in the subsequent suit against Chrysler, even questioning witnesses on the stand. The Chrysler verdict was decided in 1992, and was a victory for Kearns. Chrysler was ordered to pay Kearns US$ 18.7 million with interest. Chrysler appealed the court decision, but the Federal Circuit let the judgment stand. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case. By 1995, after spending over US$ 10 million in legal fees, Kearns received approximately US$ 30 million in compensation for Chrysler's patent infringement.
Chrysler was represented by Harness Dickey and Pierce, one of the first firms Kearns went to when he contemplated suing Ford in the late 1970s. Indeed, according to his son Dennis Kearns, Kearns wanted Harness Dickey removed for conflict of interest, but was unable to convince his attorneys to make a motion to remove Harness Dickey. He then decided to manage the Chrysler litigation on his own with his family. However, this strategy did not seem to work out well in subsequent litigation against GM and Mercedes as these firms were able to make the litigation so difficult that Kearns's claims were basically dismissed in the district court.[citation needed]
Late career
In the late 1990s, he served on the board of directors of the Veterans of the Office of Strategic Services and the General William J. Donovan Memorial Fund.
Death
On February 9, 2005, Kearns died of brain cancer complicated by Alzheimer's disease in Baltimore, Maryland. The story of his invention and the lawsuit against Ford forms the basis of the 2008 film, Flash of Genius. Robert Kearns and his wife Phyllis were divorced. They had two daughters, four sons, and, at the time of his death, seven grandchildren.
Auto industry's legal argument against the validity of the Kearns patent
The legal argument that the auto industry posed in defense was that an invention is supposed to meet certain standards of originality and novelty. One of these is that it be "non-obvious." Ford had claimed that the patent was invalid because Kearns' intermittent windshield wiper system had no new components. Dr. Kearns noted correctly that his invention was a novel and non-obvious combination of parts. Kearns' position found unequivocal support in precedent from the U.S. Court of Appeals and from the Supreme Court of the United States. See, e.g., Reiner v. I. Leon Co., 285 F.2d 501, 503 (2d Cir. 1960) (t is idle to say that combinations of old elements cannot be inventions; substantially every invention is for such a ombination: that is to say, it consists of former elements in a new assemblage.) (Hand., J.) (cited with approval in KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007)).
Other inventors in similar patent disputes
There are many other inventors who have fought long battles to enforce their patents as Dr. Kearns did. These included Edwin Howard Armstrong, who battled over the invention of frequency modulation in radio broadcasting; Walter C. Avrea, who eventually won multi-million-dollar lawsuits against Ford and GM for their unauthorized use of a coolant recovery system he invented in 1970, and which was needed to prevent overheating of Pinto and Vega aluminum-block engines; Philo Farnsworth, the "father of television", inventor of the first all electronic television set battled RCA, and Gordon Gould, who had a thirty-year fight with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to obtain patents for the laser and related technologies and who fought with laser manufacturers in court battles to enforce the patents he subsequently did obtain.
Perhaps most notably and egregiously in terms of lasting misconceptions and inaccurate history books to this day Nikola Tesla died just months before the US Supreme Court upheld his basic radio patent issued in 1900: effectively recognizing Tesla as the true inventor of radio, the decision overturned the US Patent Office's sudden reversal in 1904 granting Guglielmo Marconi the patent despite repeated rejections over several years, which in turn led directly to the questionable award of the Nobel Prize in Physics to Marconi in 1909.
Patents
United States Patent 3,351,836, Robert W. Kearns, Filing date: Dec 1, 1964, Issue date: Nov 1967, Windshield Wiper System with Intermittent Operation
United States Patent 3,602,790, Robert W. Kearns, Filing date: October 18, 1967, Issue date: August 31, 1971. . Intermittent Windshield Wiper System.
United States Patent 4,544,870, Robert W. Kearns, Timothy B. Kearns, Filing date: Sep 7, 1982, Issue date: Oct 1, 1985, Intermittent windshield wiper control system with improved motor speed
Lawsuits and legal references
Kearns v. Ford Motor Co., 203, U.S.P.Q. 884, 888 (E.D.Mich. 1978)
Kearns v. Chrysler Corp., 32 F.3d 1541 (Fed. Cir. 1994)
Kearns v. General Motors Corp., 152 F.3d 945 (Fed. Cir. 1998) (unpublished decision).
(More lawsuits of Dr. Kearns)
Notes
^ In Memoriam to Robert W. Kearns, OSS Society Newsletter, Spring 2005, p.13: "Robert W. Kearns, 77, died in Baltimore on Feb. 9, 2005. He invented the adjustable windshield wiper for automobiles. During World War II he served with OSS."
^ Schudel, Max, "Accomplished, Frustrated Inventor Dies", Washington Post, Saturday, February 26, 2005, Page B01: "Earlier in life, Kearns had been a high school cross-country star, an outstanding violinist and a teenage intelligence officer in World War II. But from 1976, his sole focus in life was to battle the auto giants and reclaim his invention."
^ Robert W. Kearns entry at NameBase
^ a b "Robert Kearns, Inventor of Intermittent Windshield Wipers and Battled Car Companies, Dies at 77" AP News, February 25, 2005
^ Wohleber, Curt, The Windshield Wiper : Nonstop ones made drivers crazy. Inventing a solution did the same to Robert Kearns", American Heritage Invention and Technology, Summer 2007, Volume 23, Issue 1
^ Johnson, Reed, Robert Kearns' flawed 'Genius' , AP / Los Angeles Times, October 3, 2008. Quoting the article about the cork and eye blinking inspiration: "When I asked him about that charming anecdote 15 years ago, Kearns quickly dismissed it as baloney".
^ a b Associated Press, Robert Kearns, 77, Inventor of Intermittent Wipers, Dies, New York Times obituary, February 26, 2005
^ Kearns v. Chrysler Corp., 32 F.3d 1541 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
^ 514 U.S. 1032.
^ Ronspies, Jeff A., "Does David Need a New Sling? Small Entities Face a Costly Barrier to Patent Protection", 4 J. MARSHALL REV. INTELL. PROP. L. 184 (2004), The John Marshall Law School, Chicago. Cf. p.196.
^ Bob Kearns' Biography page
^ Burk, Dan L., and Lemley, Mark A., "Policy Levers in Patent Law", Virginia Law Review, Vol. 89, No. 7 (Nov., 2003), pp. 1575-1696. Cf. p.1590-1591 and note 42.
^ Merges, Robert P., "A Transactional View of Property Rights", Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, University of California, Berkeley, Year 2005 Paper 8. Cf. p.17 and note 37.
References
Seabrook, John, "The Flash of Genius: Bob Kearns and his patented windshield wiper have been winning millions of dollars in settlements from the auto industry, and forcing the issue of who owns an idea", The New Yorker, January 11, 1993
Seabrook, John, Flash of Genius And Other True Stories of Invention, St. Martin's Griffin, September 2008. ISBN 0-312-53572-4
Further reading
Andrews, Edmund L., "Patents : Are Disputes Too Complex For Juries?", The New York Times, May 12, 1990. About Dr. Kearns' case.
Schudel, Matt, "Accomplished, Frustrated Inventor Dies", Washington Post, Saturday, February 26, 2005; Page B01. Dr. Kearns' Obituary.
External links
Robert Kearns movie called Flash of Genius (2008)
Robert Kearns at Find a Grave
An Obsession With Justice and Auto Parts
Persondata
NAME
Kearns, Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
Kearns, Robert William
SHORT DESCRIPTION
Inventor
DATE OF BIRTH
March 10, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH
Gary, Indiana
DATE OF DEATH
February 9, 2005
PLACE OF DEATH
Baltimore, Maryland
Categories: American inventors | Cancer deaths in Maryland | Case Western Reserve University alumni | Deaths from Alzheimer's disease | Deaths from brain cancer | Discovery and invention controversies | People from Detroit, Michigan | People from Gary, Indiana | University of Detroit Mercy alumni | Wayne State University alumni | 1927 births | 2005 deathsHidden categories: Articles with hCards | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements from September 2009
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